One of the fastest growing sports in the United States is ice hockey. Long the national pastime of our neighbors to the North in Canada, ice hockey has become a major sport in the United States and has developed to the point of having active midget hockey leagues and competition for children and young adults of all ages from high school and college to the national and professional teams.
One of the limitations in the growth of ice hockey as a sport has been the lack of availability of ice rinks. Although the number of ice rinks has grown astronomically in recent years, there is nothing unusual to have a team hockey practice be scheduled between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. on a typical weekday. It does not take much imagination to recognize what a schedule such as this does to a child of elementary school age. It takes even less imagination to recognize what it does to the child's parent who must transport the child to the rink, wait during the practice and thereafter transport the child home for the rest of the night's sleep.
There are a relatively large number of ponds and outdoor rinks available for use particularly in the colder northern areas. Most of these ponds and outdoor rinks, however, are not provided with lighting and as such their availability is of little value after dark. As is well recognized the farther north you go the earlier it does become dark and thus the utilization of otherwise good ice skating surfaces is lost.
How many players have been injured by a hockey puck which they did not see coming but would have seen had the illumination been better?. How many outside hockey games have gone incomplete because of the advent of dusk and the deterioration of the available light?. When observing the traditional black rubber or rubberlike hockey puck structure, how often has it been asked what can be done to improve the visibility of this structure?.